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AWS Lambda vs Apache Spark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Spark
Ranking in Compute Service
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Java Frameworks (2nd)
AWS Lambda
Ranking in Compute Service
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 11.2%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lambda is 20.1%, down from 28.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

SurjitChoudhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers batch processing of data and in-memory processing in Spark greatly enhances performance
Spark supports real-time data processing through Spark Streaming. It allows for batch processing of data. If you have immediate data, like chat information, that needs to be processed in real-time, Spark Streaming is used. For data that can be evaluated later, batch processing with Apache Spark is suitable. Mostly, batch processing is utilized in our organization, but for streaming data processing, tools like Kafka are often integrated. In-memory processing in Spark greatly enhances performance, making it a hundred times faster than the previous MapReduce methods. This improvement is achieved through optimization techniques like caching, broadcasting, and partitioning, which help in optimizing queries for faster processing.
Wai L Lin O - PeerSpot reviewer
A serverless solution with easy integration features
We use AWS Lambda because it provides a solution for our needs without requiring us to manage our infrastructure. With the tool, we only pay for the resources we use. Additionally, it is straightforward to implement and integrates with other services like API Gateway. The tool's serverless nature has had the most significant impact on our workflow. I find it particularly attractive because it eliminates the need for managing servers. In my previous experience, managing upgrades and updates was quite challenging. The solution's integration process with other AWS services was relatively easy. We primarily use AWS services such as EventBridge for scheduling processes and log management.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The memory processing engine is the solution's most valuable aspect. It processes everything extremely fast, and it's in the cluster itself. It acts as a memory engine and is very effective in processing data correctly."
"The processing time is very much improved over the data warehouse solution that we were using."
"The data processing framework is good."
"The most significant advantage of Spark 3.0 is its support for DataFrame UDF Pandas UDF features."
"The solution is scalable."
"This solution provides a clear and convenient syntax for our analytical tasks."
"With Hadoop-related technologies, we can distribute the workload with multiple commodity hardware."
"The scalability has been the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"We moved our users into the Amazon Cognito pool, so it helps us to standardize our security practices, approaches, etc. We can customize Lambda for authentication to integrate it with API Gateway and other services."
"AWS Lambda has improved our productivity and functionality."
"Lambda has improved our organization by making it possible to transform data."
"We are building a Twitter-like application in the boot camp. I have used Lamda for the integration of the post-confirmation page in the application. This will help you get your one-time password via mail. You can log in with the help of a post-confirmation page. We didn’t want to setup an instance specifically for confirmation. We used the Lambda function so that it goes back to sleep after pushing up."
"It is easy to use."
"The initial setup of AWS Lambda is very straightforward and quick."
"I have found all of the features valuable. It's an easy and cheap solution."
"It's a serverless solution which is the best feature. It helps us because it offers free aspects. From the infrastructure perspective, it helps us manage costs. There is no overhead of estimating how much infrastructure we're going to need. We can focus on building the business functionality that we want to build."
 

Cons

"Apache Spark lacks geospatial data."
"Apache Spark provides very good performance The tuning phase is still tricky."
"It requires overcoming a significant learning curve due to its robust and feature-rich nature."
"Apart from the restrictions that come with its in-memory implementation. It has been improved significantly up to version 3.0, which is currently in use."
"Include more machine learning algorithms and the ability to handle streaming of data versus micro batch processing."
"At the initial stage, the product provides no container logs to check the activity."
"Spark could be improved by adding support for other open-source storage layers than Delta Lake."
"The solution’s integration with other platforms should be improved."
"The execution time could be better. One of the major limitations is the time period because it doesn't give you more than seven minutes. So, before thinking about Lambda, you should think through your use case and ensure it's a good fit. Otherwise, you can use batch, step functions, or other methods. Reports and the monitoring board could also be improved in terms of alerts. The threshold alerts are there but can be improved. It takes some time to get used to these methods and get the hang of them."
"Regarding layers, you need to manually zip and install them. This step needs practice, and you might need to do it three to four times to get a hang of it."
"I think that perhaps Lambda could explore its functionality more."
"I have seen some drawbacks with certain integrations."
"Lambda could be improved in the sense that some of the things done with Lambda function take some time. So the performance could be better and faster."
"Lambda would benefit from a debugging feature as well."
"There's room for improvement in the solution's warm start, which refers to the minimum time it takes to start up a Lambda function if you haven't been running it."
"The setup was pretty complex because there were many steps. For me, it was complex because I was somewhat new at it. It could be easier for someone who has done it a bunch of times. I just found that it was a very dense user experience. There's a lot going on during setup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Spark is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"The tool is an open-source product. If you're using the open-source Apache Spark, no fees are involved at any time. Charges only come into play when using it with other services like Databricks."
"Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera."
"Apache Spark is an open-source solution, and there is no cost involved in deploying the solution on-premises."
"On the cloud model can be expensive as it requires substantial resources for implementation, covering on-premises hardware, memory, and licensing."
"Apache Spark is an expensive solution."
"It is an open-source platform. We do not pay for its subscription."
"Apache Spark is an open-source tool."
"Lambda is a good and cheap solution and I would recommend it to those without a huge payload."
"I think the price is okay. However, if they add more functionality, they can have better prices. In fact, they should have better and more flexible packages for clients who have greater consumption of Lambda."
"AWS Lambda cost is pretty decent."
"The price is expensive and is based on usage. The more users you have the higher the cost."
"The pricing is on-demand and based on runs or times that are billed out monthly."
"The price of AWS Lambda is priced very low."
"AWS Lambda is cheap."
"AWS Lambda is cost-effective, with a minimal maintenance cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
5%
Educational Organization
59%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Spark?
We use Spark to process data from different data sources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Spark?
Compared to other solutions like Doc DB, Spark is more costly due to the need for extensive infrastructure. It requires significant investment in infrastructure, which can be expensive. While cloud...
What needs improvement with Apache Spark?
The main concern is the overhead of Java when distributed processing is not necessary. In such cases, operations can often be done on one node, making Spark's distributed mode unnecessary. Conseque...
Which is better, AWS Lambda or Batch?
AWS Lambda is a serverless solution. It doesn’t require any infrastructure, which allows for cost savings. There is no setup process to deal with, as the entire solution is in the cloud. If you use...
What do you like most about AWS Lambda?
The tool scales automatically based on the number of incoming requests.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lambda?
AWS Lambda is very cost-effective. It allows for one hundred thousand requests for free per month, and subsequent requests incur a very low cost per trigger.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NASA JPL, UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, UC Santa Cruz, TripAdvisor, Taboola, Agile Lab, Art.com, Baidu, Alibaba Taobao, EURECOM, Hitachi Solutions
Netflix
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lambda vs. Apache Spark and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.